per vs PMC, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“per” is a preposition and “PMC” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#339
“per” frequency rank: #47,266
“PMC” frequency rank: 47605
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	per	PMC
Definition	For each.	Initialism of private military company or corporation.

Letter map: per vs PMC

Shared letters muted; letters that set per and PMC apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

per

3 ch

PMC

Part-of-speech tell for per / PMC

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: per is apreposition and PMCanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47605, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

per is recorded at frequency rank #339, classified as aprep, pronounced /pɜː/. PMC is at rank #47,266, tagged as anoun.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 47605, this pair ranks #200,858 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of per vs PMC

Shared letters: p. Private to "per": er. Private to "PMC": cm.

"per" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "PMC" · 3 letters · shape CCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "per" and "PMC" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "per" is a preposition and "PMC" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "per" or "PMC"?

"per" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #339 in our English list, against #47,266 for "PMC". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "per" and "PMC".

Full dictionary entry for "per" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "PMC" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #200,858 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"per" and "PMC" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "PMC vs PPA". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #200,858 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.